Canucks snap scoreless streak but fall short in 5-3 loss to Sharks

Timo Meier scored twice and assisted on another, lifting the San Jose Sharks to a 5-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks in NHL action Saturday at Rogers Arena.

San Jose came into the competition second in the Pacific Division in the Western Conference, ahead of third-place Anaheim.

Kevin Labanc, Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl and also scored for the Sharks (39-23-9), while Nikolay Goldobin, Bo Horvat and Alex Edler scored for Vancouver (25-37-9).

Aaron Dell picked up the goaltending victory, making 28 saves. Jacob Markstrom stopped 25 Sharks shots in taking the loss for the Canucks.

Vancouver finally snapped a lengthy team scoreless drought of 222 minutes and 57 seconds at 10:48 of the first period on the power play, when former Shark Goldobin sniped the puck up and over the blocker of Dell for his fifth of the season to put the Canucks ahead 1-0.

San Jose responded with 5:02 left in the third on the power play, when Labanc buried his 11th goal of the season after a scramble in front of Markstrom from a Couture shot.

A minute and 10 seconds later, the Sharks took the lead, when Tomas Hertl was able to get the puck across to Couture, who muscled off Jake Virtanen and shoved the puck past Markstrom for his 29th goal of the season.

It was not long for Vancouver to get back into the game. On the power play, Sam Gagner sent a low pass to Horvat in front of the net and he banked the puck through the legs of Dell for his 19th goal of the year to pull the Canucks back within one.

Midway through the third, San Jose broke the deadlock when Meier fired from the top of the circle, through the blocker side of Markstrom for his second of the game to make the score 4-3.

Hertl completed the scoring with his 20th goal of the season into an empty net to extend the lead to 5-3 for San Jose.

Vancouver gets set to face the Golden Knights in Vegas on Tuesday (7 p.m.)

GAME NOTES:

Vancouver: Goldobin was originally drafted by San Jose in the first round of the 2014 NHL draft.

San Jose: Forward Jannik Hansen played 10 seasons for the Canucks… Defenceman Brenden Dillon is a native of Surrey… Forward Evander Kane was born and raised in Vancouver… Goaltender Martin Jones is from North Vancouver… Dell played for the Abbotsford Heat in 2013-14.